PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINES (MUSIC FOR A FILM)

Here we have the fourth album by duo Oscar Fuentes Bills (keyboards) and Sepand Samzadeh (guitars). I was convinced this was the first time I had come across them until I realised they first came to attention after they sent some material to Bruce Soord who then used some of it as the basis for the song "Saturday" on The Pineapple Thief's '12 Stories Down' which I reviewed more than 20 years ago. This particular album has had a long gestation in that its' conception goes all the way back to the mid-2010s when Oscar and Sepand began working on music for a documentary film about artist Jean-Paul Bourdier with friend Alexandre Dorriz (who had shot the original footage). This is why the album is subtitled 'Music For A Film', and why there is just one song, "Being", with vocals (provided by Durga McBroom), which is also the only song to feature real drums (Scott Connor) as the rest of the album is just the duo. It also explains why the Hipgnosis-style cover is so striking, as the photograph was taken by Jean-Paul Bourdier himself.

However, while all of this is quite fascinating (at least to me), there is the strong impression while playing this that there is something missing, and I think this must be the visual element. The music was written to emphasise the imagery they were seeing in his pictures and existing films, but without that element being present this can at times drop too much into the ambient and lose interest for the listener. That the two musicians have a wonderful collaborative spirit which explains their more than 20 years of working together, but this does not feel like an album but rather a collection of pieces which are looking for a home. This is art which is not quite standing on its own, as although we get feelings of Tangerine Dream, Vangelis and JMJ, it is not enough to fully maintain interest and when the drum machine makes an appearance it is clunky and detracts from the overall.

While I would be interested in seeing the documentary, I think this will only make sense musically when one has the images to go with it.

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